“Foster respect for the environment and a lifestyle that results in health and well-being.” -E.G.

Elder George has devoted a major portion of the last 20 years to explaining the principle of gender and how it affects the functioning of the universe. He hosted a public access television program in Manhattan for nine years in which he explained his message in detail and to which he received an unusually high following for this medium. He served as a paid weekly columnist for seven ethnic newspapers in which he related the needs of society to gender.
Elder George is chief of Men’s Action to Rebuild Society, a spiritually-based and gender-oriented organization that promotes a more natural way of life for humankind. He is the author of A Gender Handbook for Western Man and Dear Brothers and Sisters: Gender and Its Responsibility.

In his book “A Gender Handbook for Western Man,” author Elder George states that Western thought suffers from a gender imbalance, specifically from a lack of masculine influence, and does not understand the purpose of human existence. George maintains that mankind’s purpose on Earth is the propagation and preservation of humankind while on its spiritual journey. Consequently, Western thought has pursued a grossly materialistic lifestyle, leading to the destruction of the family and consequently an implosion of society.
George attributes the issues facing society, such as high prison populations, high divorce and adultery rates, the growing dependency on medication, and the increasing incidence of mental illness, to Western thought’s ignorance of gender and the patriarchal structure necessary for the well-being of humankind. George believes that those with a marriage, a family, and a spiritual orientation realize the limitations of the materialistic society that engulfs them. In need of direction, “A Gender Handbook for Western Man” offers hope and direction by describing in logical, non-technical, and readily understandable terms the natural patriarchal way of life that supports family.

In his work “Dear Brothers and Sisters: Gender and Its Responsibility,” Elder George explains the universal principle of gender and describes how the imbalance of gender, specifically the suppression of the masculine influence, in Western society has adversely affected the lives of every man, woman, and child. He shows that our burgeoning prison population, increased membership in street gangs, and decline in standards of all sorts are gender-related. He explains that family is a necessary institution for the proper nurturing and protection of the human race, and that gender differences supplement each other in the collective effort of propagating and preserving the species as it grows spiritually.
Elder’s work is written for the concerned men and women who realize that brothers and sisters working together can establish a spiritually-based and gender-oriented society that will ensure relative stability and security while fostering future development.

Shortly after moving to western North Carolina, Matthew Baker met Evelyn Howell Beck of Whittier, North Carolina. This meeting was the consequence of Baker’s lifelong desire to discover the “real Appalachia” and the character of the people who lived there. Over the course of four-year period starting in 1998, Baker would visit Evelyn nearly twenty times. Their recorded conversations comprise the foundation of Baker’s book My Mountain Granny. Baker’s touching documentation of Beck’s life and the history of Whittier pays tribute to a once-booming mountain town and the resilience of its people.

“After inexplicably being placed in the wrong bassinet at the city hospital where I was born, I grew up with a nagging feeling of somehow not belonging, and a father who always suspected I was not his. I lived another’s life and he mine, our paths amazingly crossing throughout the years, until 57 years later I discovered the truth. This is the story of my life in someone else’s world, my quest for answers, and how I’ve come to terms with the hand which fate has dealt me.”

– Fred George, Author

This is a true story about two boys who, at birth, were inexplicably switched, a switch that would dramatically change the author’s life in every aspect—religion, ethnicity, economics, and culture. Time and time again, the two boys’ paths cross with one another’s before ultimately discovering, decades later, that they aren’t who they spent their whole lives believing they were. At 57, Fred George sees his birth family for the first time, recognizing in them his own mannerisms and traits. George’s retelling of his switch at birth is not so much an account of the switch itself, but rather the story of his life from birth to present with the George family. The story is interesting and insightful, complete with family photos that provide readers with an inside view of the culture and of the times of George’s life.

“A thought-provoking book which seeks to give the readers a new take on the mark of the beast. It has certainly been well-researched, and Adam Soul has quoted from the bible to support his argument. . .” – Lynn Evans

Answer to the Riddle of 666Adam Soul

Today mankind stands at the crossroad between life and death . . .

In his book, Adam Soul renders a compelling interpretation to the riddle of 666 that is based on science, the Bible, and common knowledge that the people of Earth have today. Soul shows how the answer is not about an antichrist, but is rather an ancient message sent to give mankind one last chance to survive the future. From this ancient message, Soul develops a simple 18-step plan for survival that he calls “The Vision of Backwards Bound.” Soul’s interpretation is not satanic in any way, but in the third part of his book, Adam Soul does make a plea to the religious realms to see the wisdom of the message in the riddle and to change accordingly. The verse begins with the words “Here is wisdom.”
Discover for yourself the wisdom of the riddle and the road to life for the future of all mankind.

I’m not a fisherman; chances are I won’t ever be. But, last year, I wrote my soon-to-be-published novel The Pukur and I needed advice on the subject. One of the major character’s hobby is fly fishing. I knew nothing about the subject at the time but spent a very pleasant afternoon with a friend, who was a fanatical fly fishing hobbyist, learning all about this strange and obsessive world.

I jumped at the chance then to review David Joy’s book, Growing Gills. I figured it would give me insight into the fisherman’s mind which wouldn’t hurt while my novel is in the last stages of editing. There’s always room for a little more research.

I wasn’t disappointed.

David Joy, a self-confessed ichthyologist, was obsessed with fish from a very early age. By the age of five he knew how to hold a rod, set the hook, prepare the reel and so on. By eleven he was raiding his teenage sister’s ten-gallon aquarium to use for his own fish. Though this first and last foray into keeping live fish proved disastrous (for his traumatised sister at least) it reinforced Joy’s desire to be in the fish world rather than the human one.

This is not to imply that Joy didn’t enjoy eating fish too. “I was born into a school of cannibalistic fish,” he tells us – with characteristic bluntness – when describing the cartoonesque image of mealtimes with his family.

“We spent so many hours casting to bream and eating their fried bodies that we all started resembling the fish we caught.”

It’s a vivid picture.

Although Joy writes obsessively about fish, in many ways his book is more about the people connected to his life on the rivers making his book accessible even for non-enthusiasts like me. His descriptions of those close to him are a pleasure to read and often most tender. His affection for his granny is obvious:

“…all I could focus on as a twelve-year-old were her hands. Hands that had picked cotton, cleaned fish, mixed cobblers, and held young’uns now exposed brittle bones and fragile skin as delicate as tissue paper. The story of her life was spelled out across her palms, each line a narrative of her eighty years.”

He never strays far from a reference to aquatic life, however, describing her with “blue veins peeping through the skin of her hands like the forks of an azure river, even her blood mimicking water.”

Occasionally, Joy’s language is a little clumsy and there are some minor, mildly irritating punctuation errors which spoil the flow. But then is he’s describing the world of a fisherman and not the finer points of Plato – though, with a degree in Literature, I am sure he could do that just as well and he certainly quotes from many a fine writer along the way.

Nevertheless, the minor flaws are quite forgivable and part of the charm of the author’s storytelling technique. Reading Growing Gills is like chatting with the fly fisherman himself – rambling, a little ad hoc and, occasionally, a little lacking in direction, but eminently enjoyable. Don’t wait for a punchline or a climax to the book – just enjoy it for what it is: A fisherman’s tales of love and devotion to the waters.

On the whole, he actually writes with artistic skill and certainly sucks the reader into his world of ‘stocked brookies’, ‘bows’ and the importance of cork grips; and especially what those corks really mean for this fisherman.

In his vivid and generous descriptions of other fishermen, like his hash-stoned but expert fly-making friend Zac, you can’t help but admire these artists, or as Joy puts it “Piscatorial Picassos”. Even a non-fisherman such as I am can appreciate – and even be mildly jealous of – the great care and skill with which these unusual folk chase their fish.

Joy gives a great deal of detail about the technique of fishing – this is a world of ‘Woolly Worms’, ‘Parachutes Adams’ and ‘Pheasant Tails’ – yet he never bores, never gets lost in the details. Like a skilful story-teller who knows when to give the reader setting and when to get on with driving the story onwards, so Joy keeps the momentum going by mixing up moments of technical knowledge with the tales themselves.

Sometimes, he even offers philosophical moments contemplating the nature of life as taught to him by the rivers in his life:

“I’ve spent years reading the words of the great philosophers, from Plato to Nietzsche. Though their prose left me awed, their thoughts never taught me as much about life as time spent knee-deep in the water with a fly hung in the hemlocks. Just as soon as my ego grows and head swells, there always seems to be a tree limb to knock me down a peg.”

Elsewhere, he says:

“The wild was nothing more than exactly what it was. Everything was true. Really, there is no greater truth on earth than the reality of the natural world. Humans should dare to be so honest.”

My favourite section of the book describes this adoration for nature best. Joy’s description of night-fishing is captivating. I could imagine being there under a full moon, on the river bank with beer in hand and fish that I’d caught stacked up ready to prepare for a rich and tasty breakfast perhaps. I wanted to be where he was and I felt jealous of the author as he described the coolness of the night; the beauty, mystery and serenity of nature in the dark. I could almost smell the water and taste the fish as I read his words.

Joy has interesting quirks. He won’t kill a trout, for instance. All other fish he will happily catch, kill and cook but not the trout. For Joy, trout are “higher on the totem than others”. Furthermore, Joy describes how he kisses the ‘slimy flesh’ of many of the fish he catches – right on the nose. That’s not for me, no matter how beautiful they look, but still, I admire his devotion.

It is much later – in fact, near the end of the book – when we find out it is a tradition of Joy’s harking back to his childhood, watching Jimmy Houston kiss every bass he hooked on TV. For the author, this is not just about catching fish; his whole life is wrapped up in even the simplest activities. I believe that if you permanently removed the author from his beloved rivers he would gasp for breath as if he was a fish himself.

Of course, no fisherman’s tales could be complete without the ‘one that got away’ and David Joy certainly has more than one. He warms us up early on with the tale of ‘the ugliest fish in the sea’ (named Spike, naturally) but later tells of the one that didn’t so much ‘get away’ as ‘never came near’! After hours of trying to catch the attention of a ‘monster brown’ to no avail, the author had to concede defeat. In Joy’ words: “Anthropomorphizing or not, that fish was smart”. Another tale is about what he calls the ‘grass eater’ a fish that caused Joy to resort to “monosyllabic cursing…more crushing than finding out that Santa Claus isn’t real…”. Even as a non-fisherman, I feel his pain.

Still, Joy is philosophical about these defeats – even welcoming them:

“In many ways the fish that get away are more satisfying than the twenty-inch trout that occasionally take the fly…These are the fish that grow twelve inches by the time the story is told, the fish that lead to tales of Volkswagen-size catfish swimming below a dam, the fish that rip drag, break rods, shatter egos, and never look back. These fish are the reason that I trim my line, tie on a new hook, and cast again.”

I feel certain that any fly fisherman will empathise with this kind of thinking – more than I can. In fact, even though this book is the fishing memoirs of an American fly fisherman, I would recommend it for any man or woman who enjoys the world of chasing, catching and eating fish. Growing Gills is an ideal bedtime companion for any obsessive ichthyologist or for someone who just enjoys getting the rod out from time to time.

For me, I enjoy fish best when they are on the plate and ready to eat. That’s as near as I want to get to these aquatic delights. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed David Joy’s stories in Growing Gills and I envied him for the harmony he has known with nature.

If you are looking for a gift for that fish fanatic in your family – for the times when they’re in the house and not out on the river – Growing Gills is the perfect choice.

Ken Ford-Powell is a British freelance writer living with his family in Bangladesh. His novel ‘The Pukur’ has just been accepted for publication and he has celebrated by drinking vast quantities of tea. You can follow him at his blog: https://kenthinksaloud.wordpress.com/

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